diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 4cc77bb..936907f 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -373,14 +373,14 @@ Understanding these shifting power dynamics is key for stakeholders when evaluat Measuring consensus in bitcoin is a complex task due to the decentralized nature of the network and the diverse set of stakeholders involved. There is no single metric or method that can definitively measure consensus across all groups. Instead, we must observe and analyze various signals and actions from different stakeholder groups. Here is a breakdown of how we might attempt to measure consensus for each group, along with the challenges and limitations of these measurements: -| Stakeholder | Metrics | Caveats | -| -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -| Economic Nodes | Press statements and social media announcements
Product developments and announcements
Transaction policies | Difficult to see the client version Economic Nodes run
Changes in Economic Node position can occur between activation signaling and grace period of upgrades | -| Investors | Price of bitcoin
Price of competing forks of bitcoin on derivative markets
Press statements and social media announcements from major Investors or funds | Sentiment can be lagging and reactive in markets with low liquidity
Market prices may not fully reflect nuanced views of Investors
Prices can be influenced by factors unrelated to consensus issues | -| Media Influencers | Engagement and views | Most widely used social media platforms today have prohibitive costs to crawl engagements at scale
Different platforms are used in different regions of the world | -| Miners | Miner signaling
Press statements and social media announcements | Forms of version bit signaling can be done without the client actually being upgraded | -| Protocol Developers | Writing, implementing, and advocating for technical proposals
Press statements and social media announcements
Code and tests written
Bitcoin inquisition merge and usage
Comprehensive risk analysis
Sufficient calendar time for the ecosystem to review and provide feedback
Activation method proposed, debate, and decided | Developers' influence is often indirect, through their proposals being accepted or rejected. Their work is also subject to interpretation and debate within the community | -| Users and Application Developers | Press statements and social media announcements
Product developments and announcements | Difficult to track the actual impact of their activities due to the nascent and fragmented nature of these applications[^23]
Usage may be heavily influenced by external factors such as regulatory changes | +| Stakeholder | Metrics | Caveats | +| -------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | +| Economic Nodes | Press statements and social media announcements
Product developments and announcements
Transaction policies | Difficult to see the client version Economic Nodes run
Changes in Economic Node position can occur between activation signaling and grace period of upgrades | +| Investors | Price of bitcoin
Price of competing forks of bitcoin on derivative markets
Press statements and social media announcements from major Investors or funds | Sentiment can be lagging and reactive in markets with low liquidity
Market prices may not fully reflect nuanced views of Investors
Prices can be influenced by factors unrelated to consensus issues | +| Media Influencers | Engagement and views | Most widely used social media platforms today have prohibitive costs to crawl engagements at scale
Different platforms are used in different regions of the world | +| Miners | Miner signaling
Press statements and social media announcements | Forms of version bit signaling can be done without the client actually being upgraded | +| Protocol Developers | Writing, implementing, and advocating for technical proposals
Press statements and social media announcements
Code and tests written
Bitcoin inquisition merge and usage
Comprehensive risk analysis
Sufficient calendar time for the ecosystem to review and provide feedback
Activation method proposed, debate, and decided | Developers' influence is often indirect, through their proposals being accepted or rejected. Their work is also subject to interpretation and debate within the community | +| Users and Application Developers | Press statements and social media announcements
Product developments and announcements | Difficult to track the actual impact of their activities due to the nascent and fragmented nature of these applications[^23]
Usage may be heavily influenced by external factors such as regulatory changes | Another way of measuring consensus is looking for the absence of press statements, social media announcements, or discourse from stakeholders. If certain stakeholder groups are not participating in public discourse, that suggests they are apathetic or unaware (SOM3, SOM4). It is also possible in rare cases that the stakeholder is not participating in an attempt to preserve trade secrets. Explaining how a consensus change could affect them might reveal the trade secret. To allow for consensus to occur, it would be beneficial for stakeholders who are advocating for the consensus change (SOM1, SOM2) or opposing the consensus change (SOM5, SOM6) to reach out to silent stakeholders to gauge their state of mind and try to engage them in the consensus change discourse. @@ -411,16 +411,14 @@ If the network switches to an Alternative Consensus Client, that would be a majo Stakeholders have different motivations and concerns when deciding whether to adopt an Alternative Consensus Client. These clients introduce new features or protocol changes, but they also come with risks that affect the bitcoin network's stability, security, and utility. Below is an analysis of key stakeholders and their motivations both for and against adopting an alternative client. -| Stakeholder | Motivation to adopt Alternative Consensus Client | Motivation against adopting Alternative Consensus Client | -| -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -| Economic Nodes | To support new features or upgrades that may increase revenue through higher user activity or they might have the perception that users want the new upgrades [^28]
Adopt alternative client in the hopes of a contentious hard fork and chain split that will generate trading fees | Risk of soft fork disruptions if not all Economic Nodes upgrade could cause double spend and loss of user funds
Uncertainty over stability, maintenance, and security of the alternative client
Costs and risks associated with upgrading systems and infrastructure | -| Investors | N/A | Security - malicious alternative clients have previously been used to steal funds from investors collecting forkcoins | -| Media Influencers | Opportunity to promote innovation and be seen as supporting advancements in the bitcoin ecosystem
Potential to gain attention and credibility by being at the forefront of a significant change
Sensationalism tends to be high engagement content which benefits distribution | Risk of losing credibility if the promoted alternative client fails or causes disruptions
Possibility of backlash from the community if perceived as pushing for changes that could harm bitcoin's stability and value | -| Miners | Support for upgrades that might increase transaction fees
If the majority of Miners adopt the alternative client, it might become more profitable and reduce the risk of orphaned blocks | Uncertainty over stability, maintenance, and security of the alternative client
Performance issues related to unforeseen latency in the back end which could lead to longer template/job creation and peering risk resulting in suboptimal tx selection in blocks | -| Protocol Developers | Opportunity to introduce new features, improvements, or fixes that align with their vision for bitcoin's future
Risk of fragmenting development efforts leading to reduced coordination and increased potential for security vulnerabilities
Project philosophy and integrity | Potentially divides the developer community and reduces the collaborative focus on a single, robust protocol implementation (Bitcoin Core)
Uncertainty over stability, maintenance, and security of the alternative client | -| Users and Application Developers | Enhanced capabilities or functionality that might support more advanced or scalable applications
Incentives to build on a protocol with more flexible or innovative transaction types, new opcodes, or other capabilities that might align with their business model | Risk of incompatibility with existing applications or services leading to potential loss of user funds
Uncertainty over stability, maintenance, and security of the alternative client
Potential for wallet or service disruptions if Economic Node adoption is not widespread or contested | - - +| Stakeholder | Motivation to adopt Alternative Consensus Client | Motivation against adopting Alternative Consensus Client | +| -------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | +| Economic Nodes | To support new features or upgrades that may increase revenue through higher user activity or they might have the perception that users want the new upgrades [^28]
Adopt alternative client in the hopes of a contentious hard fork and chain split that will generate trading fees | Risk of soft fork disruptions if not all Economic Nodes upgrade could cause double spend and loss of user funds
Uncertainty over stability, maintenance, and security of the alternative client
Costs and risks associated with upgrading systems and infrastructure | +| Investors | N/A | Security - malicious alternative clients have previously been used to steal funds from investors collecting forkcoins | +| Media Influencers | Opportunity to promote innovation and be seen as supporting advancements in the bitcoin ecosystem
Potential to gain attention and credibility by being at the forefront of a significant change
Sensationalism tends to be high engagement content which benefits distribution | Risk of losing credibility if the promoted alternative client fails or causes disruptions
Possibility of backlash from the community if perceived as pushing for changes that could harm bitcoin's stability and value | +| Miners | Support for upgrades that might increase transaction fees
If the majority of Miners adopt the alternative client, it might become more profitable and reduce the risk of orphaned blocks | Uncertainty over stability, maintenance, and security of the alternative client
Performance issues related to unforeseen latency in the back end which could lead to longer template/job creation and peering risk resulting in suboptimal tx selection in blocks | +| Protocol Developers | Opportunity to introduce new features, improvements, or fixes that align with their vision for bitcoin's future |
Risk of fragmenting development efforts leading to reduced coordination and increased potential for security vulnerabilities
Project philosophy and integrity
Potentially divides the developer community and reduces the collaborative focus on a single, robust protocol implementation (Bitcoin Core)
Uncertainty over stability, maintenance, and security of the alternative client | +| Users and Application Developers | Enhanced capabilities or functionality that might support more advanced or scalable applications
Incentives to build on a protocol with more flexible or innovative transaction types, new opcodes, or other capabilities that might align with their business model | Risk of incompatibility with existing applications or services leading to potential loss of user funds
Uncertainty over stability, maintenance, and security of the alternative client
Potential for wallet or service disruptions if Economic Node adoption is not widespread or contested | #### Upgrade paths with Alternative Consensus Clients @@ -868,4 +866,3 @@ To a long, healthy, prosperous bitcoin! [^31]: The disruption does not necessarily require high transaction fee transactions, it could be done out of band with private mining mempool products [^32]: https://x.com/giacomozucco/status/1826219048528396784 [^33]: https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/resources/regulatory-documents/stream-document?stream=reg&product=IUS-IBIT-J&shareClass=NA&documentId=2212465%7E2224307%7E2275834%7E2249884&iframeUrlOverride=%2Fus%2Findividual%2Fliterature%2Fprospectus%2Fp-ishares-bitcoin-trust-12-31.pdf -